The Wonderful World of Words

Four: The Frosted West

Genre: Fantasy

Kirby Griffin had what was once considered to be one of the hardest jobs ever at one time. Back in those days, they had been called cowboys. That was still what people in this profession were called now, but they didn't hassle with cows anymore. Instead, the change in climate had turned their animal coworkers to caribou.

Kirby woke that morning and pulled on two heavy jackets. The snow outside was growing thicker by the minute. Before he even stepped outside, he knew that this was going to be a rough job. Their ride would take them into southern Nebraska, at least a six-day ride from Texas. And each minute would be spent in the blistering cold.

His posse was composed of himself and three other men- Buck Fogg, Murphy Woods, and Greg Weldon. They were decent men of decent backgrounds. Greg was a northerner originally from Connecticut. After the ice came, so did him. Murphy and Kirby had been friends in school and just stuck together for a while after that. It was Murphy who arranged all of the transport of caribou. He purchased them from the original owners and staged the meetings with buyers. Buck claimed to be from southern Louisiana, but Greg didn't buy into that story. He said that everyone he ever knew from Louisiana had an accent. Buck was lacking that feature.

Regardless of their differences- and they had many, many differences- the group seemed to do very well in the caribou drives. They did have some conveniences which would have been foreign to the original cowboys. The most of their fears for danger on the roads were wayward trappers and wild animals. There was no blistering heat, but the cold seemed to make up for that. All in all, Kirby thought that they probably had a much easier life.

Now that the ice had frozen everything, no one was as eager to eat frozen breakfast biscuits as they used to be. That was how Kirby started every morning before a drive. He was thankful for microwaves. That was another thing that they had easier than the originals- they didn't have to heat every meal over a fire.

As he prepared for a wild two weeks of herding animals that weren't meant to be herded, he reminded himself to keep focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. They always made well over what the caribou were worth. If he could keep saving, he would have enough money to buy a place somewhere warmer. The Bahamas were what came to mind first. His sister had had a condo in Florida once, but he doubted that it had escaped the sinister plague of frost.

"Chief, you up?" Greg hollered, banging on the door.

"Eating," Kirby called back. "Come on in." Before he could even finish what he was saying, Greg was on his way inside.

He sat at the table with Kirby as he took off his gloves. "Murphy says we're looking at about four hundred head... a lot more than we're used to working with."

"Yeah, it is." Kirby replied. "But you know that at least ten will wander off at night, and we may even have a couple that get stolen. I'll bet that we make it to Nebraska with three hundred."

Greg nodded. His hat was dusted with a thin layer of powdery snow. Kirby was just about to ask what the weather looked like when he said, "It's coming down out there. It looks like blizzard, but if we get moving early, we might beat it."

Kirby thought for a long moment about what to do. They didn't really need to leave everything alone in a blizzard, but now that they were scheduled to leave, there wouldn't be very many options. "If you can leave some things unplugged, do so. You still have that laptop?"

Greg nodded.

"Hide that under your couch or something. Even if there isn't a blizzard, word will get out that we're gone. It'd be a prime time for someone to come poking around."